


Jamie Dawson

by technoshaman



Series: Dawson's Taoist [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Ratings: R, Treecats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technoshaman/pseuds/technoshaman
Summary: Correllian frieghters often have a few surprises.  This one is no exception.Content warning: depiction of an atrocity and characters' reactions
Series: Dawson's Taoist [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141616
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Jamie Dawson

"Mos Eisley Control, this is _Jamie Dawson_ , Bay 92, ready for departure." Mia's calm, cool soprano hid a mixture of anxiety and impatience; the ship next door that blasted - literally, with turbolasers - out of the bay next door two days ago looked far too much like her own. Thankfully, forty-six hours of cooling her heels in the shade of her forward-mounted cockpit had paid off; the Imperials had all cleared out in hot pursuit of the scoundrel's ship. AND she'd gotten a tip. 

" _Jamie Dawson_ , your accounts are clear, you may lift when ready," replied a bored voice. At least the bit-pushers around here were _efficient_... unlike most of the rest of the planet. 

"Inertial reference system aligned, airlocks closed, particle shields up..." A burst of desert dust flew off the ship in all directions, and Mia briefly made a note to do some laundry as soon as she made planetfall again. "Light on the gear. Controls free... " The ship rose on its shock-mounted feet, rocked back and forth, then side to side, and twisted slightly left and right. "Checklist complete! Lights, and launch!" 

The _Dawson_ rose gently out of the docking bay and slowly transitioned to climbing flight. Mia extended an old-fashioned keyboard and began typing.

`dscan -v --everything --holo`

_Wow. Not a damn thing except those little guys on the surface .. is that a_ race _?!_ She winced as two targets merged and then disappeared. _I don't even see the usual Hutt patrols._ The sky turned black and sparkly around her as she cleared the atmosphere; the noisy vibration faded to nothing. 

`nav load hyper  
READY  
nav load dest Alderaan  
READY  
nav calc --fastest  
WORKING . . . . `

YT-1300s were old, steady workhorses. They were also highly modifiable. Mia had upgraded the hyperdrive to an Avatar-11, and replaced the Rubicon nav 'puter with a shiny new Tiber II that didn't even need to be overcl _beep!_

`READY  
nav online avatar11  
. . . . READY  
nav engage auto`

Mia grinned at the speed of her computer, and watched the overhead hyperthrust levers move forward as if by Force push. The starfield became lines, and there was a familiar lurch in the compensators as the drives broke the Warshawski barrier and shoved the _Dawson_ into the space between the worlds. Almost immediately a "mrrrp?" came from the jump seat behind her, and a six-legged cream-and-chocolate-pointed 'cat flowed onto the floor and then up into the copilot seat. "I wondered if you were going to sleep the whole time?" ALL SAFE, CAN SLEEP. THEN STAR LEAP WAKE ME, signed the 'cat with a slighly disgruntled twitch of the whiskers. 

Several hours later, the console beeped. "Ten minutes to normal space, Beatty." CELERY? the 'cat signed hopefully? The dehydrated stuff, added to soup, was fine for keeping his senses sharp, but there was nothing like the crunch of a fresh stalk. "I hope so. I want some fresh veg of my own. My system's starting to complain." Thankfully it wouldn't take very long. The _Dawson's_ advanced navicomp and oversized hyperdrive meant that instead of slithering through the outer system on the plane of the ecliptic, they could arrive "above" the planet, and the hyper limit was much closer from that angle, being an ellipsoid that encompassed all of a star system's planets, but was much thinner to stellar north and south. It could save a day or two in normal space, nevermind the time saved in hyper by both the extra power and needing less margin close to gravity wells. 

_beep beep_  
`30 SECONDS`

Beatty sat at attention, tail looped around all six paws, as the seconds counted down. A rainbow flare, moving stars became streaks, and then settled into steady pinpoints of light. 

`dscan --resume`

The holo display lit up. Alderaan lay directly beneath them, along with an _enormous_ drive signature... Beatty reacted immediately with a canvas-ripping snarl, bottle-brushing. "What is it?" Mia asked urgently, even as her hand shot to the deckhead and a large button labelled QUIET. The ship did exactly that, going dark and almost completely silent. Beatty gripped the copilot seat with centimetre-long claws as the antigrav plates died. Mia toggled manual thrusters and deftly pointed _Dawson_ straight "down" for a look out the cockpit windows. She didn't remember Alderaan having a moon... or any kind of power trans _MRRRROWWWRRRRR!!!_ "WHAT THE FUCK!?!" An eye-tearing light appeared from where Alderaan.... was.... Beatty scrambled into Mia's lap, keening, and the two friends held each other for a a timeless while... 

_beep_

"What the fuck?" Mia repeated, much more softly, as she recognised the identity group in the holo display as the same scoundrel YT that had blasted out of Tattoine two days ahead of her. She chucked as she realised she'd beaten him here, and then ... "oh, shit. Whatever that _thing_ is, is going to eat him for lunch!" Beatty mrrrped a concerned agreement. Sure enough, the large grey dot began advancing towards the tiny speck of light, which was itself being irresistibly drawn in... Mia came to a decision. 

`nav load hyper; nav load sub microjump 0 0 0.1L; engage  
READY  
WORKING . . . . .  
READY`

The ship wheeled on its axis, showing its glowing tail to the planetkiller below, then _lurched_ , and the stars stretched like a rubber band, then snapped back. Alderaan's star, had they looked, would now just be a slightly brighter star in the sky. But Mia wasn't waiting. 

`nav load hyper; nav load dest Coruscant; nav calc --fastest  
READY  
READY  
WORKING. . . .  
READY`

Mia thought for a bit. 

`nav calc --recalc --fastest --below  
WORKING. . .  
READY`

It didn't take long to switch the exit point to _below_ the planet. No one did that. Well, except Mia, she grinned. Imperials always tended to think 2D, and if they did look elsewhere, they'd look up. And this was one message that _had_ to get through. 

`dscan --passive`  
WORKING . . . . . .  
NO TARGETS IN RANGE 

Mia blew out a sigh of relief. "Let's get out of here, shall we, Stinker?" _Bleek!_

`nav engage`

**Author's Note:**

>  _Jamie Dawson_ was named for the captain of a pirate-busting ghost space ship, the ballad of which ("Dawson's Christian") won a Pegasus award quite a few years ago now. Treecats are borrowed from David Weber's _Honorverse_. YT-1300s come in a variety of configurations; Mia's has the cockpit between and above the mandibles instead of off to one side or the other; she likes the better visibility. Like a certain other, more disreputable YT, _Dawson_ also has a few... non-stock... modifications, meant to help ship and captain live up to the former's implied reputation. 
> 
> I don't think I'm by any means done with these characters, captain, ship, or 'cat. :)


End file.
